Junior Delgado was one of the lesser celebrated figures of reggae music – with one of the most prolific and longer-lasting careers.
I’m surprised to find my multiple reggae posts (125 to date) have so far failed to include anything by the late great Junior Delgado.
All the more so because I met the man once, along with the legendary producer Bunny Lee, during the days – well, nights – I used to hang out at the Four Aces club in Dalston.
So thanks to my fellow reggae lover Nick Coleman for reminding me of this classic number from 1977 by the fearsomely prolific artist Oscar Hibbert (as his mum knew him).
During that fertile period for roots reggae in the ’70s his husky vocal style stood out from the crowd of Jamaican singers, and unlike many whose careers were effectively ended by the transition to digital music, he embraced the musical revolution.
Delgado started out under the name Junior Hibbert with a vocal quartet called Time Unlimited, who came under the wing of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and had a hit in JA when he was only 17 with a lilting tune called Reaction.
The group went on to work with producers Duke Reid, Rupie Edwards, Tommy Cowan and Bunny Lee, but failed to find another hit single and Hibbert left in frustration to launch a solo career, changing his name to Junior Delgado.
A collaboration with new producer Niney Holness resulted in a single called Everyday Natty and, ever the optimist, when that failed to chart he changed his name again – briefly – to Jooks and re-recorded it as Every Natty. And it flopped again.
He finally found his reward when he changed it back to Delgado and moved to Dennis Brown’s DEB label. Working with yet another producer, Earl ‘Chinna’ Smith, he had a hit with the single Tition (short for ‘Politician’), followed by the Brown-produced Famine and Devil’s Throne.
More singles were recorded with more producers, including Prince Jammy, Joe Gibbs and Augustus Pablo – the rockers cuts Black Man’s Heart Cries Out and Away With Your Fussing And Fighting.
Delgado then went back to Lee Perry to record the magnificent Sons Of Slaves single at Joe Gibbs’ studio, with Sly & Robbie providing the rhythm section and Scratch at the controls for the dub.
Sly & Robbie went on to provide the rhythm section for his debut album, Taste Of The Young Heart, and next single, Fort Augustus, while Hibbert/Delgado went on to produce the album Bushmaster Revolution himself, featuring seminal tracks like Rich Man Poor Man and Bush Master M16.
In 1979 he recorded a plea for peace, Disarm The World, though the YouTube comments are worth a read: notably the man who recalls seeing the singer waving a gun on West Green Road in Seven Sisters soon after its release; and another who insists he was robbed at gunpoint by Delgado ten years later!
In 1985, following an enforced hiatus – an 18-month stretch in prison for drug offences – Delgado came back to London to record an incendiary Dancehall single called Broadwater Farm… just before the Tottenham housing estate erupted in rioting.
Belatedly embracing the digital recording revolution, he reunited with Augustus Pablo to make the album Ragamuffin Year, followed by a dub version, and several more successful singles including Bus I Skull and We A Blood.
Moving with the times again, in the late ’90s he collaborated on the album Fearless with Jerry Dammers from The Specials, Maxi Jazz from Faithless, trip-hop pioneers Smith & Mighty, and dance remixers The Jungle Brothers, before recording an album, Reasons, with On-U sound guru Adrian Sherwood.
One of his last albums was a tribute to Dennis Brown after the death of his long-time friend, and he appeared at Glastonbury in 1999, dying six years later, leaving a great legacy behind.